Coarse And Scanty Grasses Grow Beneath Them On
The More Barren Hills, And A Luxuriant Herbage In The Moister
Localities.
In the islands between Timor and Java there is often
a more thickly wooded country abounding in thorny and prickly
trees.
These seldom reach any great height, and during the force
of the dry season they almost completely lose their leaves,
allowing the ground beneath them to be parched up, and
contrasting strongly with the damp, gloomy, ever-verdant forests
of the other islands. This peculiar character, which extends in a
less degree to the southern peninsula of Celebes and the east end
of Java, is most probably owing to the proximity of Australia.
The south-east monsoon, which lasts for about two-thirds of the
year (from March to November), blowing over the northern parts of
that country, produces a degree of heat and dryness which
assimilates the vegetation and physical aspect of the adjacent
islands to its own. A little further eastward in Timor and the Ke
Islands, a moister climate prevails; the southeast winds blowing
from the Pacific through Torres Straits and over the damp forests
of New Guinea, and as a consequence, every rocky islet is clothed
with verdure to its very summit. Further west again, as the same
dry winds blow over a wider and wider extent of ocean, they have
time to absorb fresh moisture, and we accordingly find the island
of Java possessing a less and less arid climate, until in the
extreme west near Batavia, rain occurs more or less all the year
round, and the mountains are everywhere clothed with forests of
unexampled luxuriance.
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